After ~6months of ownership I ran into a hiccup yesterday morning. I gassed up the night before if this makes any difference. It was really cold here in the AM, about 4F, when I got into the Prius and started it up the engine started and ran really, really rough, like the timing was all out of wack. After abut 20 seconds of that it smoothed out and then started surging (rev up and then idle) for about 10 seconds or so and then smoothed out to normal operation. I let it run for another minute before I began driving. After about 2 miles of driving the car stopped responding to the accelerator, like the engine had stalled, I coasted into a parking lot and shut the car down. Radio and heater fan were running, no extra warning lights or beeps going off, seemed normal. After a minute I started the car back up, it started up normally and ran normally all the way to work (15 Miles) and ran fine on the way home as well without a hitch. I am calling the dealership today to see if I can swing by and have the computer read to find out what happened. Could water in the gas have caused that early failure? Has anyone else experienced anything like that before? Thanks, Steve
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Mar 10 2007, 07:05 AM) [snapback]403310[/snapback]</div> Thanks for the quick reply, I thought that as well but then I wondered why it would run no problem after that. I have had bad gas before (not in the prius) and it ran bad for a good portion of the tank. Anyway, I'll still swing by the dealership if they have time today and see if they can get any error codes. Steve
Your Prius is a young 'un, but also check for soot accumulation on the throttle butterfly and a dramatic overfill of engine oil. One of your igniter wires may be loose, or there could be water around the igniters. The Hall effect sensors on the new model Prius accelerator pedal are not *supposed* to fail. If you have had fuel contamination, the normal response would be to add some fuel dryers and injector cleaners to the fuel tank.
Not too much to follow up with, I wen to the deaer and they checked for any error codes and they said everything was fine. The car has been running fine since that hiccup so I guess I'll chalk it up to a little water in the gas. Steve
If this happens again take the car back and insist that they do all the ECU updates. I bet that this is a programming issue.
I'll bet this was a bit of water in the gas which once it gets through the system then the situation clears itself.
Dirty injector? Run a tank full of good detergent fuel. First check for error codes though....A sensor could have failed.
